Cartagena´s Independence Day dawned bright and hot, VERY hot. Most of us in the hostel stealed ourselves for the festivities ahead with a quiet day enjoying the coolness of the hostel, but 3pm rolled around and is was time for the parade. It was like Mardi Gras meets Latino America with plenty of vibrant costumes, gay men enjoying parading in lycra and make up, sequins, dancing and a very amusing character dressed up in a joke suit waving around a zip lock bag of white powder, which he´d alternatively sniff or throw into the crowd. Apparently if referred to something Colombia is infamous for ??!!!

The sun was setting and with it the formality of the days activities. The crowd moved en masse to the oldest part of the town, Gethsemeni and the real party started. Music, dancing, fire crackers, flour, water and red paint mixed for a cacophony of noise and colour. After squealing the first time a drop of water touched me I was soon like everyone else resembling a bunch of partying red drowned rats and delighting in the childishness of having the most almighty of water (or flour, or paint, whatever was closest to hand) fights. Around midnight we retreated to a Cuban bar called Havana and saw a German´s birthday in with a bottle of rum and salsa dancing.

The next day I awoke worse for wear and with the realisation that I´d trashed a third of my travelling wardrobe. I knew I shouldn´t have paid such attention to a that online backpacking travel advice on how severely light to pack, obviously written by a man! Every female traveller I´ve met here seeems to have outfits and accessories for all ocasions (o.k apart from the one who´se gone the other way and has obviously decided that one set of clothes and growing all her body hair is the true traveller way)

I´m actually staying in Gethesemini and was so nervous when I turned up here. But as time has worn on I´ve discovered just how keen Colombia is to repare it´s dangerous image. They have special tourist police (very scary tearing around in their golf buggys) but I´ve also heard of numerous stories of locals protecting tourists if any trouble kicks off and literally surrounding them and getting them straight out of bars and to safety if anything happens. Gethesemini has a huge amount of laughter, music and singing, a really strong sense of community , neighbourhood and family. It highlights to me how these people have so little but can have joyful lives!

JA and Anne arrived and it was wonderful to show them beautiful Cartagena. We ended off the day in a beach bar with bottles of Cuba Libre and beer.. this is the life. Anne´s birthday was the next day and we had the day planned to go to a volcano with a mud bath. The bus stopped and we were directed to look to the left where a volcano rumoured to be the next to blow was. Confused we finally saw a hole in the ground about 30cms across with about a metre or 2 of volcanic rock around it, it was at least 15cms higher than the road. Not too scary. The Volcan de Turcano was mightier in size, all of 15m tall, but what it lacked in scary scale it made up with the precarious rickety steps we gingerly clambered up in our swimmers. The top was the mud bath, 500m deep but there was no danger of us sinking in gloopy stuff. Covered head to toe in muck in Colombia is becoming a habint. Some lay back for masages, to be honest any movement sent us off balance so we succumbed to the will and the therapeutic properties of the mud up to our ears. A little less relaxing was the wash off. Local women scrubbed and rinsed us off in another, less muddy pond. They had no patience for modesty as they pulled at our swimmers and ordered them off. Brusque rub down done we emerged cleansed and looking years younger (maybe?!!) from our Volcan experience and ready to go out Cafe del mar style for Anne´s birthday evening.